Kenya Airways Flight 507
Coordinates: 3 ° 57 ′ 18.8 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 58" E
| Kenya Airways Flight 507 | |
|---|---|
 The accident machine in January 2007 at Johannesburg Airport |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Controlled flight into terrain |
| place | in a mangrove forest on the right bank of the Dibamba River south-southeast of Douala International Airport |
| date | May 5, 2007 |
| Fatalities | 114 |
| Survivors | no |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-800 |
| operator | Kenya Airways |
| Mark | 5Y-KYA |
| Departure airport | Abidjan Airport , Abidjan , Ivory Coast |
| Stopover | Douala International Airport , Douala , Cameroon |
| Destination airport | Jomo Kenyatta International Airport , Nairobi , Kenya |
| Passengers | 105 |
| crew | 9 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Kenya Airways Flight 507 was a flight of a Boeing 737-800 of Kenya Airways from Cameroon's Douala International to Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on May 5, 2007. The plane crashed with 105 passengers and nine crew members on board immediately after the start in a dense mangrove forest southeast of Douala in Cameroon. All inmates were killed. To date (March 2019) it is the most serious aircraft accident in Cameroon.
Course of the flight
The plane took off on Friday, May 4, 2007 at Abidjan Airport in Ivory Coast and landed in the Cameroonian coastal city of Douala to pick up more passengers. The scheduled start from Douala for midnight was delayed by an hour due to heavy rain. Shortly after take-off, the machine sent an automatic emergency signal, which is usually triggered in the event of vibrations, such as an impact. It was first received by a ship off the West African coast. The control center could then no longer reach the pilots.
Kenya Airways set up a crisis center and a number for relatives. At the airport in Nairobi, where the plane should have landed early Saturday morning, numerous relatives were waiting for news. The Kenyan government expressed its dismay and expressed its condolences to the families. The former Kenyan Foreign Minister (until 2005) Chirau Ali Mwakwere flew to Cameroon with a delegation, including a terrorist expert, on the evening of the crash.
Heavy rain, technical problems and contradicting references to the scene of the accident made the search difficult. It was not until two days later, on the evening of May 6, that the wreck of the plane was found by fishermen in a dense mangrove forest , just 5.42 km from the runway, another reason for severe criticism of the search teams. They found no evidence of survivors. Numerous speculations about the cause of the accident are caused mainly by the short distance of the accident site from the runway. The cause of the accident must have occurred immediately after take-off, the distance corresponds to about half a minute of flight time.
The flight recorder (black box) and the remains of 81 people were recovered.
Aircraft
The Boeing 737-800 made its maiden flight on October 9, 2006 and was delivered to Kenya Airways on October 28, 2006.
Crew and passengers
There were 105 passengers and nine crew members on board the Boeing 737-800. According to the head of Kenya Airways, Titus Naikuni, these 23 belonged to different nationalities; European passengers were also on board. A Swiss citizen was killed in a German-speaking area.
- 35 Cameroon
- 15 India
- 9 Kenya (including 6 crew members)
- 7 South Africa
- 6 China ; Ivory Coast ; Nigeria
- 5 United Kingdom
- 3 Niger
- 2 Central African Republic ; Democratic Republic of the Congo ; Equatorial Guinea
- 1 South Korea ; Ghana ; Sweden ; Togo ; Mali ; Switzerland ; Comoros ; Egypt ; Mauritius ; Senegal ; Republic of the Congo ; Tanzania ; United States ; Burkina Faso
- 2 of unknown nationality
Investigations
The accident investigators found out that the 52-year-old flight captain brought the machine into too strong a legal position due to spatial disorientation . The copilot erroneously advised the master to keep the aircraft further to the right and later corrected it with “Left, left!”. Due to the too strong curve and the spiral flight that followed, the plane continued to sink until it finally crashed.
media
The Canadian documentary series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit deals with this accident in the ninth episode of the twentieth season under the title "Crashed into the swamp".
See also
Web links
- Accident report B-737-800 5Y-KYA , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 19, 2019.
- Airliner crashes in Cameroon (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ net tribune: “ Wreck of a Kenyan Boeing tracked down ” (May 6, 2007) ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ CNN : " International team investigating Kenya Airways crash " (May 9, 2007) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Planespotters.net: Production list of the Boeing 737-800 at Kenya Airways ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ BBC : " Kenya plane 'crashes in Cameroon' " (May 5, 2007)
- ↑ Final report of the CCAA (Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority) ( Memento from January 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English 40 MB; PDF)
- ↑ https://www.fernsehserien.de/mayday-cdn/haben/20x09-abgestuerzt-in-den-sumpf-1359125
